from twilight to twilight
by analine
Summary: Jack is gone, and Ianto dreams of the stars. Jack/Ianto. One-shot.


**Title:** from twilight to twilight  
**Pairing/Characters:** Ianto, Jack/Ianto  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** none; set between S1 and S2  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** character study  
**Word Count:** ~900  
**Summary:** Jack is gone, and Ianto dreams of the stars.

**Notes:** I'm really not sure where this came from today. O_o I like the idea of Ianto struggling to figure out what he really wants out of life in Jack's absence though, and so… I guess that's what this is? ;) Title is from Bjork's _Aurora_.

* * *

Ianto floats.

He rolls over and over through the darkness as impossible currents flow, breeze-like, past him, setting the hair on his arms on end, his bare feet exposed to the vastness of space, oblivious.

The weightlessness carries him head over toes, over heels, but he doesn't close his eyes, just keeps them wide open, in wonder.

There are stars, all around him.

Around _them_, he corrects, because of course, Jack is here too.

Jack _brought_ them here, Ianto realizes, and his heart swells with the idea of it.

There are moons in his line of sight, now-giant, white, floating moons, in orbit around a swirling blue planet. The colors reflected in the oceans below are so vibrant, it's like he's looking at them through high-powered binoculars-blues and greens sparkling everywhere, waves breaking over rocks right in front of him, so close he can practically smell the spray of the sea, and feel the mist against his cheeks.

"Where are we?" he asks eventually, and Jack floats into his field of vision, and while all he can really see are Jack's eyes, his face, Ianto's sure that coat is billowing out behind him, grey against all that black, the light of a million stars reflecting off those shiny, shiny buttons.

Jack doesn't answer him, just grabs his hand, and then they're moving, fast, through the darkness, so fast that the stars blur past until they're just streaks of gold and white along the edges of his field of vision.

They speed on like that for what feels like forever, past galaxies that swirl like giant splatter-clusters of paint, like paintings themselves. They move past burning suns and rings on moons and dwarf stars and black holes, but all Ianto can really feel is the warmth of Jack's hand.

All of space and time swirling around him, and it's that hand, those eyes, that coat, _Jack_, that he's really focused on. Eyes trained. Heart pounding. Throat dry.

_Falling_.

* * *

And then Ianto jolts awake-_-hypnic jerk_-his brain tells him, automatically, as his bedroom blinks into focus.

He's well-versed in the world of his dreams, after all. By necessity rather than choice, he's spent more time than he cares to admit trying to figure out how to get a good night's sleep in recent months, so he knows what's going on, why he's awake.

It's stupid, but just for a second, he wishes he could go back. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to call back those stars, _Jack_.

Then he quickly swallows past the lump that forms in his throat.

Jack is, of course, not available at the moment. He's 'out of the office' as Ianto's carefully constructed email message informs anyone who should try to contact Jack through one of those tiny portals amid the vastness of cyberspace.

Jack is gone.

Jack will come _back_, Ianto is fairly sure of this, but…

Ianto's throat constricts again, and he sits up, his eyes burning. _Stupid_.

This wasn't the arrangement, after all. Jack didn't owe him anything. He didn't owe him an explanation, or even a goodbye, really. He certainly didn't owe him comfort from sleeplessness, from the encroaching emptiness that always finds it's way inside around this time of night-during the hours when the darkness was at its inkiest black, the moon was hidden behind walls of clouds.

No, this was always something Ianto would have to do alone.

It makes him feel like some kind of huge, evolutionary mistake sometimes, waking up like this, knowing that he'll be sitting in his kitchen until morning, now. First with a glass of water, then with a cup of tea, and then finally, coffee, as those first tiny slivers of light make their way through the blinds, under the door frame, until finally the whole room is flooded with light. Well, except that it's December, and so the best Cardiff has to offer is probably a dull-bright grey, just barely lighting the room to the point where flipping the switch on would be overkill.

It's frustrating. He should be able to sleep.

Except that he doesn't really want to, maybe.

Maybe he wants to sit here, staring out at the darkness through his tiny kitchen window until it turns from purple to grey and the light trickles in, spilling through whatever cracks it can find.

Maybe he wants to be lost in thought, alone.

Jack, after all, consumes everything in his path when he's here. Every corner of Ianto's mind, of his heart, of his entire being, sometimes.

In his absence, maybe Ianto should enjoy the freedom.

* * *

Ianto wakes up to the sound of his mobile buzzing out an alarm, hours later.

The kitchen is filled with soft, predictable grey light as he rises, first to silence the buzzing, and then to return to the kitchen, to bring his still half-full mug of tea to the sink, to drain its contents, to scrub it clean, and finally to return it to its place in the cupboard, dry and sterile, pure.

His second attempt at sleep had been dreamless.

No stars, no swirling double-helix nebulas, no Jack. No floating. Just the empty quiet of his mind, and true, restful sleep.

He has the feeling that if he could somehow figure out which one he truly preferred, which state of mind felt the most true to himself, he'd probably have the answer to one of the great mysteries of his life on this planet so far.

Honestly though? His mind's drawing a blank right now.

And so he figures he'll leave this particular unanswered question for another morning.

He's got work to do, after all-the day has just begun.


End file.
